Somewhere
by GoldFlareon
Summary: A brave glaceon takes it upon himself to rescue a pokémon in need, but when he takes her back to his clan in the snowy mountains, complications arise. Just when things look like they might be settling, a young clan member decides she can handle the night on her own, forcing her brother to make a decision he never thought he would make.
1. Part One

**Somewhere**

Paws met snow with a light, icy crunch. Wind whipped around a figure as it sped across a narrow bridge and onto a mountaintop of snow, a flapping tail in its wake. Tensed muscles aided in propelling it forward with every step, marking the ice with small shapely holes.

Scuttling ahead ran another figure, its small legs hardly able to maintain a quick pace. Promptly it fell over, skidding through the snow and tumbling until it came to an abrupt stop. Quickly the larger figure closed in, leaping toward the smaller, black pokémon whose fear was embedded into its quivering face.

Promptly the smaller of the two was lifted off the ground, the black ponytail on her head caught between the jaws of the pokémon who now held her in his grasp. She squeaked, calling out with alarm as the hair-like appendage sent bolts of pain to her mind. The pokémon whose teeth held her in place, however, was focused on nothing more than charging on, his legs replacing one another as he stayed in the same spot for no longer than a split second.

In the small black pokémon's distraction, she hardly had time to react in panic to the reappearing form of a monstrous ice type whose burly arms smashed through the wall of a cave she and the pokémon carrying her had just shot from. Her shrill cry spiralled up into the diamond-shaped ears belonging to her carrier, two appendages that flowed from the creature's head flapping about near the smaller one's face. She rocked wildly from side to side as she was carried, the pain from her position drowned out by the intense fear she felt for the pokémon who had newly begun to pursue them.

"Hurry!" she shrieked, and the pokémon carrying her, breathing hard from the effort, narrowed his eyes as a firm brow pressed itself down, his snarling nose rising to meet it. Icy steam escaped his mouth with every puff of forced air, shooting behind him as he continued on and secretly hoped for the air to somehow solidify around the pokémon behind him.

He sped on, trying to push himself harder as ferocious roars escaped the maw of the pokémon in his wake, able to visualise without turning around the enormous pokémon's hideously enraged face with what would appear to be permanent creases of anger upon his scarred face, ploughing through the snow as he dropped to all-fours and charged after them with only one focus in mind: elimination.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry! I'm sorry," insisted the small psychic type, her tiny voice hardly convincing as her saviour carried on, trudging as fast as he could up a steep, snowy slope, all while knowing that the pokémon behind him was perfectly able to scale the slant with little more than a few leaps.

A growl escaped his muzzle as his green eyes narrowed even further, his back legs aching as his front ones tried to aid them in scrambling along the snow. When he reached the top, he did not dare turn back even for a small glance before he powered on down the side of the hill, taking note of the vast forest laid out before him. He grunted in thought as he mused that his clan was much the same as the acclimatised trees, but did not waste any further thought on stray considerations.

The small pokémon tried to bury her face in her little black hands to rid herself of the image her paranoia was trying to predict; the gigantic icy-white pokémon with permanent icicles on his chin would shoot down the mountainside and catch them in a single paw... Her consistent swinging made trying to cover her face with her hands nearly impossible, and the fact that her eyes were far bigger than her hands prevented such a motion altogether. This would have caused her to feel more frightened, but as she continued to be carried, she began to feel a small pool of hope amass in her somewhere; the glaceon seemed to be _escaping_.

"I think we're...I think we're getting away," the small pokémon began, wanting to break into a cheer at the same time as desperately feeling the need to be silent. However, as soon as she began to believe that they might have a chance of getting away, the looming figure crested the hill, obscuring the sun for but a second before barrelling down the hill after them. "No!" she shouted, her small voice melting into the snow around her.

The denim-coloured pokémon gripping her tried to ignore her shouts as he continued leaping further away from the beast and toward the vast expanse of snowy trees. Determinedly the pokémon continued to charge forward, gasping as he envisioned the large pokémon behind him gaining on him. He whipped his head around, daring a look just as the massive bear pokémon gave out a roar and lashed forward, swiping a massive paw toward them. The glaceon's eyes widened the instant before the paw missed, and in response, immediately tossed the gothita away. She shrieked as she flew through the air low to the ground and disappeared within a mound of snow, momentarily catching the beartic's attention.

The moment the bear pokémon glanced away, the glaceon shot a thick beam of ice toward him, striking his nose and encasing it in ice. The ice type, suddenly realising what had happened, whipped his head back to the glaceon with eyes blazing and intentions firmly planted—there was no deterring him now.

With what appeared to be a playful flash of a grin, the glaceon whirled back around and rocketed through the air, slamming the ground with his paws once more. The rush of adrenaline that bolted through his body was not unfamiliar to him, and only further pushed him into the trees, dashing between each one and weaving in and out of what was a densely populated area. He knew this, and therefore was also aware that the great bear-like pokémon would have a certain amount of trouble dealing with the congestion. The thought lifted his smile, but he did not let it distract him or boost his confidence to unrealistic levels.

Taking a sharp turn, the small blue ice type dashed off the main path he had been following, momentarily misleading the beartic, only for him to reset himself back on the right track and follow along, brow firmly knotted with anger. The glaceon, beginning to feel the strain of exhaustion, tried to imagine a suitable way to throw the pokémon off track. One such option was to find a cliff and somehow trick the pokémon into falling off, but he was not sure where one was now that he was on solid land, as opposed to the mountaintop he had recently been on. He could not climb trees, and even if he could, that would be out of the question, as he was sure the beartic could. He could not lead him back to his clan, for that would be irresponsible of him, and not at all practical. Keeping this in mind, he found it hard to imagine what could be a suitable solution.

Nevertheless, he continued on, hoping that at some point, he would find something to end the scene and solve his problem once and for all. Quickly glancing about, he realised that he was coming out of the forest. The notion was a little disconcerting, as it meant he would be exposed and without a place to hide. However, as the structure of the land coupled with the arrangement of certain trees and distant views washed over his eyes, the area began to reveal itself as familiar. With wide eyes, he verified that just short of where he loped lay a wide river—one perfect for washing a beartic down. He did not know how possible it was, but it was worth a try.

Testing his ice and blowing a few stray puffs of mist into the ground beside him as he ran, small spires erected in his wake before they were shattered by the charging pokémon tailing him. A savage roar ripped through the area, startling the ice type eeveelution, who again resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder to view the galloping form. He yelped with surprise when a beam of ice shot directly past him, freezing the ground and causing a small wall of ice to build itself on the spot. The quadruped swallowed a glob of dry saliva, dashing to his right as another beam struck to his left, freezing the spot he had just been.

Growling as he realised that the beartic had just made everything painfully difficult, the glaceon darted off in a diagonal path to the river not too far from where they were, having to leap every now and again in case another beam was fired at his paws. To his horror, instead of a freezing beam of ice, a thick, piercing shard shot over his head with a thin whistle. Alarms sounded in his head as he gritted his teeth and changed path again, this time heading directly for the river. Again another shard shot his way, causing him to accidentally miscalculate his jump and trip over his paws, plunging into the ground and rolling through the snow.

Immediately another shard shot his way, and he promptly had to drop his head to lay on his side as the dagger skimmed past, removing some fur from his shoulder. He was shocked by the incident for but a moment before he noticed that he was not hurt, and it was merely the fur that had parted with his skin, as opposed to his skin from his muscle. This, although reliving, was a sure sign that he needed to _flee_.

As the bear pokémon approached, enormous teeth revealing themselves in a snarl once more, the glaceon sat up, using his front paws to suddenly push off the snow and dart between the great pokémon's legs with a quick attack, accidentally bumping the pokémon as he soared past.

There was a rumble of anger as the pokémon turned around, only to find that his target was nowhere to be seen. Confusedly the pokémon grunted, whirling around again, only to find nothing. He stopped, baffled, while scanning the surrounding areas. He could still _smell _the punk who had invaded his home, but he was nowhere to be seen. He brought a large paw to his head and scraped his scalp a few times, then snorted and dropped to all-fours again. He felt his most prominent feeling of anger drain from his body and leave him in a state of agitation, but lowered rage, before he blew a puff of mist from his nose, which had unfrozen when he purposely shattered the ice encasing it, and blinked a few times. It was then when it occurred to him how sleepy he was, and began to make his way slowly back to his mountain. However, he made it no more than a few steps before sinking down, his face planting itself into the snow as his rump faced the sky.

The glaceon, who had hidden behind the beartic the whole time, waited a moment to ensure the great ice type was down for the count before cautiously strolling past, eying the pokémon's face as he crept. A bubble hung from the pokémon's nose upon each breath as a promise that he was not getting to his feet anytime soon.

The glaceon sighed; his family was one of the few who had a line of eevee born with the ability to yawn and convey tired feelings to another pokémon, only to put them to sleep a few short heartbeats later. The glaceon was aware that it was not an ability that eevee learn naturally, or glaceon for that matter, and he was one of the few in his clan able to do it. Similarly, others were vessels of moves such as summoning a shooting star to grant a wish and restore energy, or the ability to draw power from a berry and transform it into an attack.

Not dwelling on the thoughts but thankful for the power, the ice type sped past the predator, heading back into the nearby forest. The trees welcomed him with glad whispers and small sprinkles of snow and ice, a few stray pieces wetting his coat before sliding off. He used his nose to scent the air, and although the majority of what he could smell was simple coldness and the scent of frosty flora, he was convinced that he could find the small psychic type he had saved.

Lifting his muzzle as he came to a halt, he closed his eyes and felt the soft wind dance around him. The breeze cradled the appendages hanging from his crest and played with them for a short time before his eyes snapped open, and he was again shooting off in a slightly different direction. The scent carried him only a short while before he spotted her at the foot of a tree, shivering wildly while something shimmered around her, almost looking like a dome of liquid. He was in quiet awe of her ability to control energy how she did, as he has rarely seen anything like it.

He lowered his head and relaxed his gait once she spotted him nearing to try to convey his friendly intent. She was on high alert, as was expected. "Don't be afraid, little one. I have returned."

"I'm not...a kid...you know," she shivered, a sort of hostility in her eyes which he had not previously picked up on. He tried not to appear surprised as he bent his legs and lowered his head.

"If you would come with me—"

"O-of course," she responded a little awkwardly, as if unsure why she was so guarded around her rescuer. "You know how to get out of here..."

The glaceon cast a glance in the beartic's direction and watched as he stirred. "Indeed, but if we want to escape without that gigantic ice type freezing our tails, we must leave now."

The psychic type nodded and hesitantly brought down her shield; she was wary about the glaceon, but only due to the fact that she was worried he would appear unpredictable. She had not seen enough of him to make a solid judgement yet, but based on how he had simply saved her without being asked – aside from her screams and pleas – she was fairly convinced that he was a good-hearted pokémon with no hidden, malicious intent.

Without another word, the glaceon bent his head down and allowed the pokémon to climb up his face, only to sit on the back of his neck and clutch at his short fur. He uttered to her that she might want to secure herself with psychic power, but realised soon after that she was probably quite drained and therefore lacked the ability to secure herself. Instead she simply sat there and hoped she would not fall off, pressing her body against his pelt partly in exhaustion.

He glanced over his shoulder and spotted her, giving her a smile of hope. She tried to smile back, but was beaten by the glaceon's speed as he took off, loping between the high-reaching trees.

**ooo**

Night had fallen by the time the glaceon had reached his clan and, prepared, he explained to the small black pokémon clinging to his back that there was no chance he would be able to escort her out of the mountains before darkness fell. She had agreed and told him that she believed there was a greater risk of being hunted and killed when there was no light to provide them with the safety of sight. In agreement with her word, the glaceon explained that he could allow her to stay with his clan for one night, and in the morning, they would descend the mountain and meet with its base. From there she could find her way and be on the right track for her home.

She was content with that and although he knew that there might be a sense of hostility from some of the clan members due to the stranger's invasion, he knew that they could say nothing about it. Clan law permitted one outsider to stay with the clan for a single night, and as long as they left at dawn, there would be no further problem. He explained to her that if the outsider was an eevee or glaceon and met the requirements – the details of which he did not expand on – then there was a possibility that they could be inducted into the clan.

"Does that happen often?" wondered the gothita, and the glaceon slowly rocked his head from side to side.

"It has not happened in many years. Most pokémon do not wander through these mountains without a purpose, and therefore most pokémon we see have objectives and no desire to join the clan anyway. It's only by pure chance we might meet a candidate; in fact, it has only happened on two occasions in the history of our clan. My grandfather and grandmother were one of those two times." He took a moment to see if the psychic type had a comment to contribute, but she did not speak. "The other was years ago when I was eight years old."

"Don't worry, I won't be a pain to deal with," the gothita assured, and the glaceon tested a smile, sure that she would stick to her word and confident about her already.

The two arrived at the clan's borders shortly after and came to flat ground littered with snow where a collection of clan members sat and had gathered in groups. Many of them were speaking softly to one another while others simply sat, their minds at east as the blanketing darkness began to slowly encase their surroundings. When some of them saw the two enter, their heads shot up immediately, frowns pressed into their brows and concern on their faces. The pair simply continued on, passing some who got to their paws and others who merely sat and watched suspiciously. The gothita clung to her saviour tightly as he passed through, paying no attention to those around him.

He rounded a jutting cliff face and entered an opening in one side of it, the small psychic type getting a glance at the height of what appeared to be a large rise. The ground, if they were to walk alongside the cliff face, slowly rose up to meet with the higher ground and became evenly levelled. She imagined that the cave they were about to enter would also rise up so there would be hardly anything of a room a few metres in, but to her surprise, the path sloped _down_.

The surprise also came with the level of darkness that met them when they entered, but it was shortly dispelled when shafts of dim light were spotted shining down through openings in the top of the cave-like habitat. As they entered into a larger room, no longer in the passage that greeted them from the entrance, the psychic pokémon spotted what appeared to be glowing crystals on the walls. She began to shiver more fiercely than before, realising that the temperature was dropping considerably fast. As well as being away from the snow, she figured that the rock encasing them would hold some more warmth than out in the open, but if anything, it felt colder.

"Is it supp-pposed to be so c-c-cold in h-here?" she whispered, noting with something close to shock that the breaths escaping her mouth turned into condensation.

The glaceon turned over his shoulder and was about to answer when another voice chimed in.

"We are ice types."

The gothita tossed her eyes about the room before spotting, to their left, a larger, older glaceon atop a ledge protruding from the wall higher up. It was far higher than she knew the glaceon could leap, but felt a little silly when she noticed smaller stepping-ledges leading up to it, although it still appeared as if one would need to leap between each one with a considerable spring.

Suddenly the small pokémon began to tip forward, and for a moment she was surprised and wondered what was happening before encountering the fact that the glaceon she was riding on had bowed to whom she assumed was his leader. When he was finished, he lifted his top half again by elevating it with his front legs. "Yorrand, I humbly ask your permission to harbour a guest tonight."

The gothita watched as the glaceon, who looked to be at least a few times the younger one's age, pointed his gentle gaze to the glaceon and tilted his head up a fraction. "And who might this guest be?" he questioned, his voice somewhat husky. The way his head was angled caused the glowing ice stuck fast to many parts of the surrounding walls to reflect off his eyes and light a spark of both wisdom and authority. She swallowed, finding herself unquestionably intimidated already.

The glaceon bent down again, and at first the gothita thought he must have been bowing a second time – although for what purpose she did not know – until she slid all the way off, which was when she concluded that he intended to present her for assessment. She held her skirt down with both hands and angled her lavender face up at the other ice type eeveelution.

"This is a young gothita I found on a spontaneous outing today," the glaceon explained simply. When it was clear that the elder desired more information than that, the glaceon continued. "She was exploring a cave, but the cave unfortunately happened to belong to a sleeping beartic. This beartic was..._unhappy _to receive the sight of a foreign pokémon intruding in his home when he was woken up."

When the elder cast a judgemental glance over the small gothita, the small pokémon flashed a sheepish smile glazed with embarrassment and a degree of shame. However, she did not speak, although she wished to retreat back into the glaceon's fur. "Well, _unhappy _is an understatement," she piped up, a little shocked at herself that she had spoken. She suddenly noticed both sets of eyes on her, but cleared her voice and continued anyway. Her voice was the only sound in the cave as it bounced off the ice-touched walls. "I-it was more like...furious."

"This news does not surprise me," the elder murmured, and the gothita felt a small amount relieved by the news. She let her shoulders relax as she breathed out some degree of a chuckle. A shiver climbed up her spine, but she quietly ignored it.

"Yes, they are...very aggressive," she agreed.

"No," began the older glaceon, his voice strong and crisp as it rung out through the cavern. The psychic type flinched a little at the abruptness of it and then focused herself on his strong, armoured eyes. "It does not surprise me that an outsider would behave in such a manner. Aggravating the more...wrathful inhabitants of our shared land."

The psychic type stuttered a little while trying to manage an apology, but was interrupted when the elder's face softened.

"Do not fret, little one. I will not harm you." He began to descend the small ledges stuck to the wall; the psychic type expected his legs to suddenly give in each time he landed, but they remained as tough as his demeanour.

The elder, once on the cold stone floor, padded slowly up to her, and it was then that she became fully aware how large he was—nearly twice the size of the one who had saved her. This time she felt like cowering. However, upon seeing the small, relaxed smile of the glaceon beside her, and a separate one on the ice type looming not a metre before her, she felt herself release the tension. There was nothing to be afraid of.

"Tell me, what is your name?" he inquired, and the small psychic type swallowed before glancing to the pokémon who had rescued her. He nodded and blinked once to assure her that she was safe to do so.

She swallowed and turned back. "Mindi."

The elder glaceon gave a single nod. "Mindi, please take into account that we may only harbour one outsider for a single night, as is our custom. I trust you have already been educated on this matter?" He turned his head slowly to the other glaceon.

He looked down in respect and bobbed his head. "I have educated her, yes."

When the elder looked back to the psychic type, she quickly piped up before he could speak. "I will behave myself at all times... I can't hunt for you but perhaps I could...perhaps my psychic abilities might come in handy for something. I'm...I'm not sure how, but I'll find a way," she exclaimed determinedly, as if trying to fight for her place.

The elder seemed pleasantly amused, although not at all mocking. "Have no fear, child; we do not expect anything of you in return. These mountains were built _for _us, not _because _of us. We have no right to keep them to ourselves indefinitely. Simultaneously, we must protect it, for it is the only thing we have besides one another, and that is the reason for our law." He paused to ensure everything was clear, and when he deemed it suitable to continue, he did. "I would happily accept you amongst our clan this night," he began graciously, and upon hearing the words, Mindi's entire body breathed a sigh of relief, and her shoulders relaxed. A smile stretched across her lips and in the midst of turning to the younger glaceon, the other began to speak once more. "_However_...we have one other staying with us already. And as much as I would like to compensate you with safety, it is currently impossible..."

Mindi felt her blood run cold. At first she was confused at why she had not been informed as soon as they set foot into the cave, but then she could only focus on her shaking limbs. She had expected safety this night, and now she was being denied that simple luxury. With fearful eyes, she caught the startled stare of her rescuer.

Yorrand gave a short bow out of respect and apology. "I bid you my sincerest apologies. I cannot grant you an exemption for fear of misbalance. If I allowed one pokémon to be an additional guest staying one night, then it would be expected of me to do so other nights for other friends of my clan, or...it would be expected of me to break other traditions and laws that have been in place with the clan for many years."

With one more flash of an withered diplomatic smile, the elder turned around and met with the wall before bounding up each of the smaller ledges, and reaching the wider, top one. When he did, Mindi watched with her frightened gaze as he sunk into a lying position and watched both her and the other glaceon.

The little psychic pokémon was in shock as she continued to stare, and began to shake her head to match her quivering body. The information processed itself slowly through her little mind, beginning to taunt her about having to find another place, only panicking herself even further. Finally she tore her gaze from the elder and to her saviour, whose brow was knotted with disappointment and traces of sympathy. She began to flick her eyes between both of his, as if in search of an answer that may have been hidden in the fur between them. "But I...there's nowhere for me to go," she breathed, her eyes filling with multiple levels of fear as she glanced over the ice type's face.

He sighed inwardly and lowered himself to the ground, waiting as the gothita did nothing but feel herself panic even further. "Climb on," he instructed softly, and only after another small protest did she eventually lift herself up. Before exiting the cavern, he turned his head to the elder and held his eyes for a moment, giving yet another dip of his head.

As he pulled out of the chamber and back through the slowly-rising passage, he felt his tail droop and his head sink. When they emerged outside, his paws kicked the snow aside and shuffled it away as if annoyed by its attempt at comfort. The little gothita on his neck was not at all convinced that she could find anyplace that was comforting or safe during the night, as was displayed by her small words which were devoid of hope and her face, which the glaceon could not see at present, but could clearly imagine in his mind.

"I am sorry... I shouldn't have gotten your hopes up without checking first," he murmured.

"Where do I go? Where can I stay out here that isn't...beartic territory?" she whimpered, viewing the image of the massive creature and his deadly claws, not to mention his ability to project ice wherever he pleased. Being with a glaceon, much smaller and generally friendlier, was a much more comforting thought. "I couldn't sneak back here... I'd be too afraid to do that."

"No," grunted the glaceon with a slow head-shake. "I would not permit you to do that... It would only make things worse. We must respect clan law and find you a place outside the clan to stay."

"But where...?"

Mindi's small, delicate words hung in the air and weaved in and out of the ice type's ears as he tried to imagine an answer. He wanted to suggest a tree, but if the psychic type could not climb or get down, then there was no sense in responding with that. However, when he put it forward, Mindi responded that it was likely she would be able to get herself up and down from the branches by using her psychic abilities, although she would need to be in the right mindset to be able to do so. Other than that, she mentioned that any tree hollow would be appropriate, and she could deal with staying nestled in a little burrow as well, as long as it did not contain other unwelcoming pokémon.

"Perhaps at the mouth of a burrow, then?" put forward the glaceon, and he felt Mindi shrug on his neck.

"I don't know... We'll just find somewhere and then...see how safe I am."

As they passed directly down the mountain, a voice chimed from his right, and across a small hill came bounding a full-grown copper-coloured eevee with a wide grin across her face. "Brother, brother!" As she came closer, the pearl puffs of fur around her neck bouncing and swaying with each step, her brown eyes became clouded with questions and her brow pressed down a little. "Who...who is that?" she questioned, coming to a stop shortly before she came within two metres of them. She looked cautious of the black pokémon, but more so curious.

The glaceon's face lightened when he saw her, and angled his head over one shoulder. "This is Mindi, a traveller through these mountains. She is a gothita." He narrowed his eyes in playfulness and leaned closer, muttering lowly, "A _real _psychic type."

"Wow, a real psychic type?" wondered the eevee, her face becoming one of wonder and curiosity.

The gothita cast her a wary glance and slowly nodded, understanding that, for the most part, it was okay to talk to this creature. She was, after all, related to the glaceon who had saved her life. "Yes, I am...a psychic type," she clarified, although she was less than keen to show her any sort of "trick."

"Can you show me something?" she asked, and immediately Mindi cringed. The glaceon caught notice of this and smoothed out his voice.

"Mindi's very tired," he began reasonably, "and we need to find her a place to stay for the night."

"Oh yeah," pondered the eevee, looking to leave the conversation in that moment and allow her thoughts to drift away. "I saw the other pokémon who wanted to stay with us." She pursed her lips, then stretched her mouth into a sort of sly smile. "But you're more interesting," she whispered to the gothita, who blinked in surprise.

"Oh, I'm really not—"

"What was the pokémon?" inquired the glaceon, wondering how his little sister knew when he did not.

The normal type, somewhere distracted, promptly replied, "Just a forest pokémon."

The verification of a pokémon who had taken her place as the clan's only overnight guest deflated Mindi's mood; it was further confirmation that there was no hope for her after all.

"Can I help you look for somewhere to sleep?" asked the normal type with heightened interest, and the glaceon in front of her blew a cloud of mist from his nose as he appeared to consider it. "Please?" she asked, her eyes wide and her smile bright.

"You may," her brother granted, and she grinned as excitement flooded into her.

"Hooray!" she cheered, and bounced a few times. Mindi felt herself cower a little, marginally intimidated by the young pokémon's clusters of energy. She raced directly toward the two pokémon and immediately leapt over her brother's back, tucking her paws in so she avoided clipping the psychic type's head. She was glad for this, but at the same time, did not appreciate the action at all. When the eevee landed, she whirled around instantly and beamed.

"Let's go!" she cried, and the glaceon smiled back, then looked to his guest. Mindi took a breath and nodded, giving him a sort of permission to continue on.

As the eevee began to trot away, Mindi knotted her brow and thought of asking the glaceon where they were headed. Suddenly she realised that she did not know his name, and crept up his neck to murmur, "Um...what is your name?"

He turned his head so that one eye could see the both of hers before he answered, "Kairack."

**ooo**

"It may not be entirely concealed, but it will do for the night," the glaceon informed from atop a small cliff, looking diagonally down from it and at the back of a wide tree. Lined up against the cliff was a hollow in the tree's trunk, just enough space between the rock and the opening to allow someone small such as a gothita to wedge herself through and remain nestled inside.

She glanced up at him somewhat sadly, her eyes fearful and her appearance completely unsure. "Are you sure this will be safe...?" she questioned with a small voice, and the glaceon kept his eyes on her without answering with anything specific. He wanted to reassure her, as it was fairly concealed and he was sure that not many would bother to check such a spot for prey, but at the same time, it could have been a lie of false hope.

"I can't see you!" shouted a high-pitched voice from the base of the tree, and as Mindi reached her head around the tree, unable to lean out far enough to spy the small form of the eevee, she felt some sense of relief. Not only could the normal type not see her, but she could not gain such a position that would enable her to see the eevee. "You're so hidden; it's like you're not even there!"

Mindi caught a flicker of a smile from the glaceon before he turned back with a face of reasoning and reassurance. His expression was light, and gave the psychic type hope that he was not going to throw anything overly-serious or pressuring onto her. "Tora can't see you," he input, and Mindi gave a brief smile.

"Okay...well then, I guess this is suitable enough," she murmured, pulling herself back through the hole. She swallowed and glanced around, patting one of her feet on the loamy inside of the tree while wondering how there could be a sudden gap in the trunk. She considered that perhaps somebody had purposely made it so for their own inhabitancy, and hoped that an unexpected guest was not going to show their face to her in the middle of the night.

After Kairack ensured that there were no visible predators around, he had hopped off the short cliff that slanted to meet up with the rising hill, and trotted with his sister in the direction they had come. It was the opposite direction to where Mindi was facing, so she could not watch them go, which bothered her. Nevertheless, she tried to keep herself focused on the positive, and sat to one side, unable to see anything out through the hole in the trunk except the hardened face of the side of the cliff.

"I'll be fine... I'll be fine," she muttered to herself in some attempt to press the words into her mind and suddenly make them believable. She gave a final sigh before closing her eyes and hoping that she could get to sleep in the early hours of the night, knowing that when the sun rose, she would likely be allowed back to the clan, where she would seek more guidance from the glaceon who had so kindly walked her through the mountains up until this point.

With the thought in mind, she permitted herself to relax so she could drift off to sleep.

**ooo**

Upon arriving at clan grounds once more, Kairack made an effort to find out who the guest for the night was. He did not hear it from anybody but the clan elder and Tora, and he knew in the past that the elder had been informed of guests, only to have been misled when the guest was unable to stay. It would have been unfortunate if the case was similar for this night, but the orange illumination blanketing the horizon which shone out onto their land informed the glaceon that it was not yet too dark to retrieve the gothita from her temporary dwelling anyway. However, if he found out when it was too late, he was not going to risk trekking away from the mountain alone, or with the risk of leading anyone or anything back to where Mindi was hiding.

He worked his way through several ice structures which were being patched and refined, and kept an eye open for any glaceon who was aware of the guest they had accepted into their clan for the night.

Eventually he came across someone's den which contained the targeted pokémon, who was a grass type from the nearby forest who, like Mindi, did not want to be in such a vulnerable position during the night. Like himself, the glaceon harbouring the guest acted as a guide, and wished to keep the pokémon safe for longer in the clan grounds. Kairack was content to find that the glaceon was simply being noble and helpful to this stranger, as was his reason for wanting to keep Mindi there overnight.

Tora was still unclear on the reasons behind why only one guest per night was permitted to stay with them, but Kairack, not entirely understanding it himself even under the explanation given by the elder, only told her that she would one day understand.

By the time the sky had darkened, Kairack and Tora had nestled together amongst other glaceon on the floor of Yorrand's cave. Many of the glaceon slept there during the night, mostly members who did not have the time to maintain an ice home – such as the hunters – or for those who simply preferred to stay in the cave. It was a mix of reasons for Kairack, and Tora, as his little sister, rotated between sleeping beside him in the cave and staying in her parents' ice home. Every home surrounded by ice was reinforced with a main structure of wood, which were set up generally by passers-by who had opposable thumbs and the strength to lift. Many of the glaceon feared the destruction of their homes as they were, so they came to the solution of hardening everything with ice so that if it was to melt somewhat over the course of a few days, they could simply freeze it once more and retain the structure. Kairack thought it to be a clever idea, but he himself was not interested in seeking help for an outside pokémon to build him his own little home. He preferred the cave.

"Aren't you meant to be staying with Mother and Father tonight?" the glaceon asked as his sister snuggled up against his side.

She waited until she was comfortable before she raised her eyes to him. "I wanted to stay with you."

The glaceon frowned a little, figuring that his parents would not have a problem with that anyway. "Okay."

"So we can go and visit Mindi!" she exclaimed happily, some glaceon around her who had already settled down glancing to her in mild annoyance.

Kairack met eyes with them and then returned his gaze to the eevee. "Mindi? Yes...we can see her in the morning."

The eevee's expression became scrambled with confusion. "No, we're going to visit her during the night. And go on an adventure!" she declared, excitement racing through her voice.

Kairack was a little confused at how she had drawn that conclusion. Realising that the eevee had developed the assumption based on nothing but speculation, he cleared his voice and attempted to speak informatively. "We cannot break away from the clan during the night. It's too dangerous out there alone."

The eevee, dismayed by the news, felt her ears droop as she took in her brother's information. "But...but that's not fair," she murmured, her eyes clouded with sadness as she peered up at him.

"We can go in the morning. When the sun comes up," he repeated, hoping to somehow excite her with the idea.

However, the eevee was not going to take the bait. She simply frowned and turned away from her brother, then whipped her head back. "I want to go on an adventure! And sneak out," she growled, once more alerting those around her with her loud announcement.

"If you plan to sneak out, you should not be saying it loud enough for others to hear," Kairack grumbled.

"So you _will _sneak out with me?" questioned the eevee hopefully.

The glaceon sighed. "Go to sleep, Tora."

The normal type recoiled with some degree of surprise, as if she was shocked at his instruction. Blinking multiple times and pulling away, she got to her paws and stared at her brother. "But I wanted...to go on an _adventure_," she shrieked, this time loud enough to wake anyone who may have been already asleep.

With a rumbling growl, the glaceon shot immediately to his paws and loomed closely over his sister, immediately intimidating her. "Not tonight," he demanded firmly, then glanced to those around him. "You're disturbing these pokémon."

A horrified look of betrayal washed across the eevee's face as she interlocked her small fangs and parted her lips in a sulky snarl, slipping quickly from his grasp and fleeing between the agitated glaceon more concerned with their hours of rest than a squealing eevee throwing a tantrum. Witnessing this, Kairack let another sigh slip and fled from the cave after the eevee, easily catching up and overtaking her. Pivoting, he came to a halt a few paces away from where she was running. She could not stop quickly enough and slid through the snow into her brother's legs, shaking off as her gaze angrily met his.

"It is clear that you don't wish to stay with me tonight, so go to Mother and Father's."

The normal type's eyes clouded with sadness as she slowly shook her head. "No...but I wanted to—"

"You lost your privilege," he grunted, and picked her up by the scruff as he headed in the direction of his parents' home. His sibling whined and shouted in protest, flailing her limbs about and causing him to nearly drop her a number of times. However, he held his jaws firmly clamped and did not plan to let go until she was within the walls of her destination.

**ooo**

Bitterness coated the little eevee's mind as she lay without the desire to sleep, her mother and father, as well as a number of other relatives, all curled in the small space they called home. Personally Tora preferred the cave, as the house was colder due to its floor of snow and its icy walls. She understood that as an eevee, she needed to get used to cold temperatures before evolving into a glaceon, otherwise she would be ill-equipped for the ice and snow, but sometimes she wished she could have evolved already so that the temperatures were easier to bear.

She was still angry at her brother, and no amount of sleep was going to cure that. She had wanted to go and visit Mindi, but he had been too stubborn to even try. She snarled as she thought about it again. "I'm not afraid of any wild pokémon..." she grunted to herself, her head jiggling up and down as she did so as her jaw pressed into her paws. Her thoughts morphed into those more rebellious, and she frowned as he she realised that she did not need someone else to accompany her. "I'm nearly evolved... I can take care of myself."

The consideration took a moment more to stir and solidify before she lifted her head, glancing around. The other five glaceon in the room had been sleepy when she entered, and now they had all fallen unconscious. She had not been tired at all. Even now, when she assessed their conditions, she knew she was not nearly as tired as they were. No... She was awake.

Carefully treading between the sleeping forms of ice types scattered on the floor, the eevee weaved her way toward the exit, which was sealed with ice. However, this was not the first time she had escaped, and knew exactly how to get out.

**ooo**

After Kairack had returned to the cave, he discovered that his spot had been taken. The news was hardly surprising, as even if those around him had known he was returning to claim it, they would have happily replaced him. He did not blame them, and figured that a spot on the slope nearest to the entrance would be rather intelligent, as he may have had the need to check up on his sister and ensured she was not giving their parents too much trouble. It was like her to throw tantrums over trivial matters, he thought bitterly, but he thought that she was aware how lucky she was to be granted permission to sleep in the cave for the night. He was almost surprised that he had been let back in, but was thankful nonetheless.

Partway into the night, he found his head shooting up as he awoke to the familiar faint howl of the wind. It channelled through the cave and out through the entrance, meeting with some other current while helping to carry away the bad dreams of the unlucky. However, it was not bad dreams that he had been having. The night had been unrestful, but the first thing that passed through his mind when he woke to a blackened world was his sister, and the manner in which he handled the situation earlier. He assumed the feelings had surfaced while his mind played with ideas in his sleep, finding one so pressing that it disrupted his rest.

Lowering his head onto his front paws, he heaved a sigh and watched a small puff of condensation flow from his nostrils and mingle with the rest of the cave's air. He caught himself staring into the darkness rather than the back of his eyelids and sighed again, giving in to his guilt. He rolled his eyes shot up, leaping out of the entrance. He thought he may have stepped on a tail or two, but thankfully nobody stirred, and he made it out absent commotion.

The night air greeted him with open arms, inviting him further into its depths. He knew better than to trust its calls, however, and ignored them as he took a seat and felt the cool wind brush his fur and sway the long flaps hanging from his forehead. It was chilly but refreshing, and as a glaceon, his body welcomed the extra dosage of coldness. His clan had adapted to the coldness in such a way that they could never be frozen by another pokémon's ice type attacks, and consequently never felt cold.

After spending a few short minutes just thinking to himself, the glaceon figured that, while he was up, he should at least check on his sister. And perhaps, if there was room in the small house, he could sleep there for the night. It was rare that he did, but sometimes sleeping amongst family was a nice change from sleeping with the hunters and the roamers. He raced through the snow, directing himself to the home he knew the position of, which he was thankful for given the darkness of the night and how difficult it was to navigate. The snow pressed between this toes and his footprints were left in the fresh layer that had fallen during the course of the night, which he was sure would become compact once the clan awoke.

Flakes settled upon his nose as he went but quickly flew off in a fleeting rush. He tried to scent the air a few times, but what little there was to smell was masked almost entirely by the crispness of the cold. He was used to this, however, especially at night when the cold was always more powerful.

The glaceon, as he drew closer to his relatives' dwelling, began to sense a strange feeling of misplacement. At first he tried to simply dismiss it, but he had learned before that doing such a thing was almost always foolish; although there was mostly nothing wrong that exceeded the most basic level of caution, he could not help but feel that this time it was different. Anxious, he sped up and trotted faster, eventually breaking into a run.

As the home neared, he felt his jaws tighten. His eyes were fixed on the structure, one of its walls a rock surface on the side of a cliff. He neared it with increasing speed, and soon enough, he was upon it. Slowing to a stop, his abrupt halt threw snow in many directions, only for it to spatter soon after as it connected with the frost-encased ground. He hardly paid it any attention as he noted with a frown that the house seemed to be in fine order. Many of the glaceon in the clan, his parents included, sealed their homes with ice so that no intruders could successfully break through without being detected, and it was a relief to see that there was no such break in any location.

However, at the bottom of one of the ice walls, where snow was meant to cover the ground, a small hole burrowed under the wall. With wide eyes, he zipped closer to inspect it, noting just how narrow it was. With more pressure applied to his teeth, interlocking them further, he acknowledged that the hole was wide enough to fit a small pokémon through—his sister.

His heart thudded hard and fast in his chest. He tossed a stern glance in the direction he assumed his sister had fled, wondering for but a brief moment what would have driven her to escape the warm embrace of her family. It was a second later when he realised that the answer was obvious: Tora had wanted to visit the gothita Kairack rescued earlier, and the glaceon, not wanting her to go, had denied her. He shook his head lowly, knowing that rejecting her plea should have been followed up by a close eye on her; he should never have let her leave the cave.

Knowing he had no time to work on breaking down the ice entrance of the home, he sped off in the direction he could see little eevee pawprints, cursing at both himself and his foolish younger sibling. She clearly did not seem to believe that danger lurked amongst the frost in the darkness, as he knew that she had never ventured out at night with less than a large pack of the clan's members. She was ignorant and naïve, and those were two qualities he often resented in her. She was young, so it was partly not her fault, but he wished she could simply _know_ what not to do.

He bounded through the snow, flicking frost up left and right and felt it trail up his fur in a quick flurry before landing several paces from him, his eyes set on one thing and his body shooting forward as if there was no other possible direction. He made sure to keep an eye on the trail to map out where he was going so he did not venture off-course.

He thought frantically to himself as he tried to consider if she would have taken a shortcut or may have tried to cover her tracks sometime into the trail, but he could still faintly see each mark her paws had made, and realised again that she had little to no experience with such things, and no interest to learn. He was thankful for her youth for that reason, at least, but he feared that was the only exemption.

Flashes of the beartic attack popped into his mind, and for one horrid moment, he imagined that the great beast had perhaps followed the gothita to where she had been stashed for the night, and had a terrifying vision of the ice type settling for Tora instead. Kairack was unsure how she would go in the face of real danger, especially against one that could tear her apart with two swings of his massive paws, and hoped that she would be smart enough to at least hide.

Suddenly his ears pricked up with a sound, alerting him to a hoothoot in a tree nearby. He nearly jumped, and slowed to a walk as he reassessed his position, realising that his fast pace could attract any number of predators, and ones who would likely not show him mercy, similarly to the beartic he encountered earlier.

Briefly he scowled at the flying and normal type and fled again, racing through the snow in the direction he continued to hope his sister had bolted in.

When he was sure he was drawing closer to Mindi's hiding spot, he heard yet another strange sound. This time he could recognise that it was not a hoothoot in a tree, but something else, and something that was probably powerful enough to take down his sister with a single attack. Panic coursed through him as he approached, ramming his paws into the ground as he ascended a hill, and crested it with burning limbs and a determined mind.

The first thing he saw was a set of three figures down on the icy ground below. In his field of view was, peculiarly enough, a pokémon rotating time and again on his wide head; at first he could not even tell what it was, until the creature finally stopped spinning and could be identified as a hitmontop. For one brief moment, he wondered what in the world a hitmontop was doing in the middle of an icy mountain, when suddenly he spotted what he had been looking for: a small, brown eevee. He caught a glimpse of the fear and regret in her face, and could see that she had clearly been battling to the best of her ability. She looked beat, while the hitmontop looked more than ready for more.

Right as he screeched her name and began to dash forwards, he acknowledged the third figure, and at first thought it could have been an oddly-clad tyrogue. However, after a few steps and a moment of realisation, it became clear that what he was staring at was not even a pokémon—it was _human_.

Fear leapt through his body like a blitzle on the run from a pyroar, and his fur bristled in several places. He was unsure how many pokémon the human carried, as he knew that they often imprisoned pokémon to do their bidding, but he had a suspicion that his sister was the human's target.

"Leave this place!" he yelled as he approached with a rapid run, heading directly for his sister.

Instantly her eyes grew wide with long-awaited hope combined with an abundance of fear and dismay, and without thought, she blurted, "Kairack!"

"I'm coming!" he shouted, almost tumbling over his paws as he descended the hill at a pace nearly too fast for his legs to keep up with.

The human creature kept his eyes on him and did not respond at all to the fear in the glaceon's eyes. The way Kairack saw it, he was the older brother rescuing his sister whose foolish actions had gotten her caught in a tragic situation. The way the human looked to view everything, he was the eevee's backup, and he was merely an obstacle needing to be discarded.

Supporting Kairack's assumption, the human sent his pokémon spinning forward, rapidly moving toward him. Without a second thought, the glaceon sent a current of icy wind forward from within his maw, hoping with desperation that it was powerful enough to encase him in a block of ice. However, it only seemed to lightly lace the pokémon with frost and do nothing more.

The icy wind failed to even hinder the hitmontop, who powered forward and immediately made contact with a solid foot. With a shrill cry, he was knocked back immediately, partly by his own doing in an effort to avoid more of a beating. Kairack had never experienced a battle with this species and was taken by surprise at the measure of power its kick had, feeling dauntingly outmatched.

"What...what are you _doing_?" he questioned with a hiss, standing his ground a few metres from the hitmontop again, back up the hill. He tried to read the pokémon's intentions, but found himself completely unable as the spinning did not stop. "She's my blood sister!"

Once more the pokémon span forward, but as the snow got deeper, the fighting type became more and more incapable of climbing the hill. As soon as Kairack realised this, he began to back up again, a feeling of excitement beginning to soak his limbs. He knew that all he had to do was get the hitmontop bogged, and he would be in a position of power.

The hitmontop was forced to stop spinning and stood on his two oddly-shaped legs, which gave Kairack the cue he needed. Without giving him a second, the glaceon leapt forward with open jaws, intending to combine a bite with an ice fang. However, the moment before he struck, the hitmontop effortlessly drove his fist upwards, striking Kairack perfectly in the chest and abolishing all attempt to attack. The punch continued through and sent the ice type over his opponent's head, all the way to the bottom of the hill, where he failed to catch himself and crumpled into a heap.

Wounds and aches erupted everywhere on his body, the fear in his mind causing his heart to race far too quickly for his liking. The glaceon tried his hardest to lift himself up again, but the hitmontop used the hill to his advantage when he sped down it on his head, kicking in all directions as he went. The glaceon was too weak to move and, with one last glance to his terrified sister, he hoped to the Legendaries that she would be spared.


	2. Part Two

**Part Two**

Murky thoughts invaded the glaceon's mind. They swirled in patterns unidentifiable and not yet ready to be sculpted. Ideas and very hazy visions tried to intermingle and form something coherent, but the amount of effort it was going to take to discern any of these things was not going to be small.

A paw twitched and an ear shuddered, eyelids heavy and reluctant to move. A weight seemed to lift as Kairack's vision began to clear and a more solid state of awareness flowed back into his mind. There was little to stop it, and soon it was swelling. Swell, too, did the state of his head. The thick beating hammered inside his skull, shaking the brain hidden between the walls of his cranium. Laboured breaths seeped in through his nose, and with a groan, the ice type managed to drag his front leg up, feeling his paw press into the ground afterward. His other legs followed, and soon, with a shake of his beating head and another groan, he was standing. He inhaled deeply, observing his usual white surroundings with a pleasant eye. A smile began to trickle across his face until suddenly a sense of foreboding overcame him. His body felt hot with dread and suddenly he was full to the brim with horror. Without a second thought, he glanced around, eying the smaller things that pieced together the scene composing his most recent memory.

His eyes expanded in an instant, all that he had momentarily forgotten swarming back into his mind. Terror overtook him as he span around, whipping his head in several directions as his facial appendages tapped his cheeks with each movement. Hardly paying attention to this, he tensed every muscle in his body and raced forward to sniff the ground.

"No..." he grunted to himself, feeling suspended in a state of panic. The memories rushing back into his mind were not anything he wanted to remember, nor would he want to forget them. There was a fighting pokémon who attacked him...for a human. That human had targeted his sister.

_Tora had been taken._

"No!" he shrieked louder, shaking his head uncontrollably. He lifted his maw, trying to see something – anything – that might give him a clue as to where that human had gone. He clenched his jaws together. There was no indication of whether the creature had continued in the same way it had been travelling, or if it had turned back to return to the place it had come. Kairack had never been trained in the art of tracking, so he was less than capable of uncovering what was not already obvious to the unpractised eye.

Curling his muzzle into a snarl, the glaceon ploughed through the snow with his head down, attempting to find his sister's scent. Maybe, if he could find even just a single fibre of fur from her body, he might be able to follow it.

He grew more frantic as he raided the area, kicking snow aside in search of clues, but simultaneously afraid that he was masking tracks that he would be covering with each reckless move. He accidently bit his lip as he clamped down his jaws again, instantly tasting the bitterness of blood. He may have paid it the slightest bit of attention if he didn't have such pressing matters at paw, but in his current situation, nothingoutweighed the importance of his sister.

As much as he wished otherwise, there was nothing that he could use to follow her scent. He knew what she smelled like from memory, but everything around him was soaked with the subtle but blanketing scent of snow. He had noticed after waking that the sky was lighter than it had been when he was last conscious, but it was only then that he considered what that meant: they were long gone.

His breathing grew more scattered, his paws twisting with frustration and fear. On occasion he breathed out frost that immediately froze into tiny shards which littered the snow, and his eyes felt as if they were bulging from his head. He had skirted the area and found nothing; the combination of snow and wind had blown anything away that may have been of any use to him, and as it whistled around his head, he could almost hear it mocking him. He scowled with such fury that he felt more ice fizz from his mouth until he screamed with both fright and ire, projecting a powerful beam of ice. It struck a tree several metres away, gouging out a chunk from its side and freezing all that it touched. He didn't _care _what it touched.

A roar ripped from his maw and he snorted out a cloud of frost once more, tearing away from the site of his sister's abduction and racing in the direction of his clan. His paws pounded the packed snow, some of it differing in softness as he went, flicking it aside and at one stage, even beginning to sink into it. He resented those patches most of all, even more so now that he was in a heightened state of distress, and tried to burrow his way through. When his efforts to increase his speed through those parts failed, he targeted the upcoming soft snow with a blanket of ice, hardening its surface and allowing it to become easier to run along. He felt his pawpads meet with uneven spikes that his reckless aiming had caused along the paths, but paid them no mind.

Thoughts of all sorts whizzed through his mind; terror invaded every scenario he formed in his mind and cruelty tainted the rest, many outcomes springing into his mind. Tora was only small, and although she was nearly fully grown for her species, the probability of her being able to fend for herself was dreadfully low. She could hardly stand up to the other eevee in the clan, and she had only ever been able to win two practice battles out of countless with other clan members.

That human could do anything to her. She may be helplessly tortured, or her body stripped of her skin in a sick attempt to craft it into some sort of warm garment; she could be forced to evolve and then put on display, or tested in a series of terrible fights...

Trying to shake the awful possibilities from his mind, the glaceon forced his legs to carry him further, his tiredness beginning to get the better of him. There was little he could do to speed up his travel time and decrease the amount of energy he was spending aside from constantly replay Tora's capture in his mind. It did not grant him supernatural speed, but it did help somewhat.

Finally he saw the clan's land in the distance, and felt something of another dose of motivation zip through his system. He saw a small pawful of glaceon and eevee roaming around and shouted to them, gaining their attention instantly.

"HELP! In the name of Articuno, Tora needs help!"

Immediately the creatures lifted their heads to him, their brows furrowing and their interest clearly piqued. Concern rose into the air as Kairack neared, his ears back and his movements still somehow rapid. He felt tears tug at his eyes as others began to approach him, some in a wary trot.

"Kairack, what are you talking about?" a female questioned with hard concern. He didn't know this pokémon very well, but had begun to converse with her more in recent weeks. Not two moons ago, she had taken care of Tora when Kairack had to fill in for a pokémon in the hunting party and needed someone to look after her.

He shook his head. "She's gone... She was taken! She was taken by a human who came through the mountain."

The female gasped sharply, clearly shocked by this revelation. "When did this—"

"I have to tell my family," he insisted, a glare upon his face as he tried with might to fight back tears. Despite his stern demeanour, he was still prone to the effects of intense emotion, especially when his baby sister was involved.

His thoughts thickly clouded with despair, he barrelled past the glaceon willing to help him and headed towards his family's home. His paws crunched softly into the packed snow, and occasionally he felt a sharp spike from where a solid piece of ice or a stray stick invited itself into his pawpad.

Along the way to his destination, several glaceon were disturbed by the shouting that came from the female glaceon who had greeted Kairack at the entrance to the clan's living grounds. As she continued to chase him, she spouted questions at him regarding the incident he had spoken of. A few clan members turned to one another in concern upon gathering that something was amiss, while others exited their homes without a single clue as to what was going on. Kairack acknowledged the number of bystanders that he (and the female) attracted and wondered somewhat keenly if it was an indication that his plight would receive the attention that he desperately hoped for. The more who got involved, the higher his chances of conducting a search party for Tora. That was part of the reason he had returned to the clan rather than chasing her alone. Additionally, that human likely had more pokémon under his rule, and facing them all by himself would only result in one outcome.

The frantic glaceon weaved between ice huts before coming near the edge of the living boundaries, spotting his family's home. Angrily he realised that none of them were awake yet, which caused his jaws to clench. With a furious bark, the impatient pokémon demanded the presence of his parents, and any other family members whose attention he could gain.

No sooner than a few seconds later, his father emerged from the back, groggily angling his glare at his son in the painfully early hours of the morning. Without a beat, he stood tall to allow his body to stretch while frowning, clearly restraining his irritation. "Son, what is the meaning—"

"Tora is _missing_," he growled, a throaty rumble to his claim. A snarl hijacked his muzzle and caused it to twitch. With hesitation, he decided on a phrase that he would never normally throw around lightly, and handled it with a dark tone. "It's your fault."

The wide gasp which had been present on his father's face had only acquired disgust and subdued rage at the remark, and it was clear that the older ice type was not used to tolerating attitude from his son. Even whilst his son's steps were shaky, his exposed teeth and infuriated eyes did not speak of fear. "Dare you repeat that?"

A ripple of silence slithered between the two, having to edge slowly around the tension. Kairack could see a few other glaceon from the corner of his eye looking on, as if interested to see where the situation would head. The ice type clenched his teeth harder and felt the breath he drew through his nose catch several snotty boundaries due to his tears before he parted his jaws and spoke, "It's your... f—"

Immediately his father sprang on him with a vicious bark, which Kairack replicated as the two wrestled for a moment, their claws suddenly useful for more than just gripping ice.

The rumbling vocals each were emitting drew more onlookers, causing many to protest in an attempt to persuade them to part, but father and son were too engrossed in the idea of preserving their honour. More of Kairack's family began to pour from the igloo, his mother seeing exactly what the ruckus was first and screeching at them to stop. Helplessly she neared them, only to be pushed back when Kairack made a powerful push toward her, he and his father tangling again after a moment of separation.

"Dart, stop!" she shouted at her mate, firing a pointless icy wind which, although aimed well, did nothing but freeze on their pelts and then crumble to the ground after a few moments.

Her mother, who also lived with them, stumbled upon them after her daughter. Seeing the commotion, she brewed an attack which made her mouth bubble before blasting it forward in watery rings and drenching daughter's mate and her grandson as the former landed a powerful bite on his son's neck. The force of the blast caused both to suffer a secondary effect which neither were used to.

Both pokémon came apart, stumbling over their paws and toppling one after the other. Kairack's vision was fuzzy as he witnessed someone come to his side and try to speak to him. Nothing would come into focus, however, and the only thing he heard himself speak was jibberish. His father was in the same state, trying again and again to hoist himself up with little success.

Kairack's mother, having glared a little at her mother – who merely shrugged at her blame – shook her head. "Mother, you could have at least made it weaker."

"Well, that mightn't've separated them," she claimed somewhat nonchalantly. Seeing her daughter's doubt, she rolled her eyes. "Sharli, they'll be fine in a few minutes."

"Dn...hff... mss," mumbled Kairack, his eyes coming open before his eyelids fluttered and closed again. The glaceon was clearly trying to seek himself out, his breathing becoming fragmented as even his lungs seemed confused.

Sharli neared her son's face while leading with her ear, inquiring, "What was that, sweetie?"

The response she wanted was far from the few moments of shaking that she got instead, and sighed again. She glanced around at all of the surrounding clan members and frowned at them, annoyed that they were intruding without proper reason. "What?" she growled, squinting at them in frustration. "Don't you have someplace—"

"Miss Sharli!" called a voice from nearby, causing the mother to rotate her head.

Once she laid eyes on the approaching glaceon, she smiled a little. "Oh, hello—"

"Tora's missing," she breathed, wondering if Kairack had managed to tell her before he was confused to the point of spilling indecipherable words.

All thoughts ceased as Sharli's heart skipped a beat. "E...excuse me?"

The glaceon who had just appeared took a step back, staring in shock that, even though she had prepared for it, the older ice type was only now hearing the news for the first time. She averted her eyes to Kairack, who indeed seemed to be somewhat unable to respond. "He...he told me and then ran straight off. I can't...tell you what he knows."

Sharli abandoned her son without a second thought and scampered closer to the newcomer, her eyes wide and her motions rapid. "What happened to my daughter?!"

The surprised glaceon only blinked multiple times, her voice in fragments as she stuttered back a reply devoid of information. Dissatisfied with the response, Tora's mother stressed her voice to the point where the other female might have predicted its breaking point.

"Sharli," snapped the riled ice type's mother, authority to her voice. "The girl doesn't know."

Sharli's eyes remained on the female and her rapid breathing did not reduce in intensity, her breath nearly powerful enough to cause harm. At her mother's words, her rigid body remained the same for only a short time before her head lowered slowly and she accepted it. Her jaws came together and she whirled around. "Kairack!" she whined, her eyes wet with fear. Her entire demeanour had changed within a few seconds, now cradling a lust for hope and direction. "Kai? Kai, sweetie? Can you please wake up?" she ordered, nearing her son with tentative steps. She urgently glanced to the crowd of glaceon around her, knowing that she commanded all eyes except the two which she desired most. "Kai, please! Tell us...tell me where your sister is. What happened to Tora?!" she shouted, becoming increasingly agitated with each breath. "Kairack!"

Her son's body lolled about, his brow furrowing and his eyes continuously opening and closing, as if he was attempting to wake himself from his state of confusion with blinks.

"It's not...our...f..." began a voice, and Sharli's head instantly whipped to its source. With compassionate eyes, she rushed to her mate, lowering her head as he tried to speak. She slowly coaxed more words from him, finally hearing, "It's not our fault."

She stood with a furrowed brow, trying to come up with a conclusion for his odd wording. "I know it's not..." she began, her mind turning as she considered the reason for his statement. As curiosity seeped into her mind, she flicked her head to the family igloo and examined its exterior, noticing that below one of its walls, snow had been shuffled aside. She pushed aside some of the debris from her mate's and son's skirmish and discovered what was obviously a small hole.

Tora had broken out of the igloo during the night.

Dart was slowly coming to his paws, groaning at the after-effects of the water pulse, and glanced at his mate, whose face was contorting further and further with a volatile combination of fear and desperation. He tried to fight back a number of emotions as he approached her. His mate's mother looked on with an uncertainty in her eyes which he knew all too well, as did a few of the other nearby glaceon whose keen gazes had been pressed into their pack mates' troubles. Dart approached her and slipped his neck behind his mate's, pulling her closer with a small nudge. Sharli took solace in her mate's embrace before she let tears slip from her eyes.

Slowly Kairack began to stir, his foggy vision and clouded hearing separating into what he could define as sense. The first thing he could properly make out was the embrace shared by his parents which he deemed currently inappropriate. His brow came together with dissatisfaction and he shakily steadied himself with his paws, frustrated that they were not taking a useful course of action. The young glaceon who had run after him darted to his side and allowed him to lean on her for a moment before he hoisted himself up.

"Mother!" he shouted once he felt as though he could untangle his tongue. He was met with immediate eye contact. "Tora escaped during the night," he reaffirmed, reiterating what she already learned. He noticed this by her reaction, and followed up with, "I tried to follow her, but..."

"But what?" questioned a new voice to the scenario, causing Kairack to rotate his head. Approaching the group was a greener-tinted male glaceon, a small smirk on his face the clear indicator of his self-assumed authority.

Kairack sneered at his arrival. He had never liked Cyfur. He glanced to his mother's worried face before returning his gaze with a reluctant sigh. "My sister Tora was taken by a human."

The mention of the word 'human' drew countless gasps from the crowd gathered around and sent his mother into a deeper state of despondency as she wept loudly.

Cyfur raised a brow, his expression now serious, and glanced to the confident form of Kairack's grandmother before he uttered, "Come with me." He turned around without waiting to see if he was being followed, and Kairack nodded to his grandmother. She padded over to her daughter to comfort her while Kairack, summoned alone, took his leave.

He turned before he left and met eyes with the female who had helped spread the word. "Thank you, Bolt." Their eyes were locked on one another for a few more steps before the male turned his head and hurried his pace to catch up to Cyfur.

**ooo**

Two male glaceon sat in the chamber which the elder called home, only one awaiting judgement. Kairack was alone as he watched the elder and the glaceon who had summoned him converse. Cyfur was the elder's right-paw pokémon—his advisor. The elder himself was still mulling over the details when he asked his clan-mate to repeat certain details of the event. Kairack was growing more impatient by the minute; this verdict was taking too long, and he needed to gather a party and set out in pursuit of his sister and her band of captors.

Finally the elder, after trading words with Cyfur, cleared his voice atop the outcrop of rock which sat halfway up the earthy wall. Cyfur jumped down a level, sitting while watching Kairack with a hawklike glare. Although there was no trace of a smirk on his face, something about his demeanour always annoyed Kairack.

"I will not grant you a tracking party," the elder croaked. "Nor may you pursue your sister." Kairack's gasp was ignored as he added, "Good day."

Cyfur zigzagged down the platforms until he hit the cavern floor, all the while hearing confused protesting from the glaceon in question. When he tried to near him, Kairack backed away, his eyes flicking between him and the elder.

"Stop. Cyfur, stay your legs!" he demanded, but the glaceon merely raised one side of his brow and let out a low rumble. Kairack's response was only that of the latter, his lifted hackles stiffening.

"Enough." The elder's words echoed through the empty cavern, successfully achieving what it meant to and stopping the commotion between his two subjects. "Violence is not permitted in this chamber."

"Yes, Elder Yorrand," Cyfur responded, keeping his eyes on Kairack.

Kairack merely snarled again and faced his attention back to the elder, a little aghast. "Why will you not let me lead a group to find her?"

Yorrand cleared his old, wrinkled throat as he sat wearily on his haunches and carefully brushed aside his damaged facial dangle. "You know the boundaries of this territory, Kairack. Leaving the mountains pertaining to matters of self-interest is an insult to your forefathers. Abandonment of your clan is strict cause for banishment. This is an incident involving one eevee, which does not warrant multiple members to leave the clan." Before Kairack could ask for the details of his response, he continued, "The clan's structure is too fragile and the risks are too great for too little of a reward."

Kairack's anger flared at the last part of Yorrand's sentence, but Kairack was less than interested in reducing his chances of obtaining a ruling in his favour by insulting his elder. He held his tongue until he found words which neither degraded him, nor the importance of his dilemma. "Elder, forgive my insolence, but she's my _sister_! The human may not even be off the mountain yet."

"And if it is?" questioned the old glaceon, his furred brow raised.

"I don't think you heard me," he growled, disregarding the obvious disrespect he was emitting. "She's my blood. She's part of your clan. It's not self-interest; it's looking out for my family. For the clan." He gave another snarl, accepting that the elder was not going to grant his request for a party. Perhaps if he offered a change to his request, the verdict would be different. He sighed heavily, eying a patch of the cavern's floor. "Then I will go alone."

The elder's chest expanded as he summoned a deep breath before exhaling in one second, clearly not surprised. "Are you proposing self-banishment?" he confirmed, his quiet voice devoid of emotion.

Kairack felt his legs shake as he gave a firm nod. "If that is what it takes to save my sister, then—"

"Very well," boomed the elder, traces of disgust in his response, "you have three days, including the remainder of this one. If you do not return by the third day's sundown, you shall be outcast if you are not within the mountain's boundaries. If you recover your sister off the perimeter of these mountains after the allowed time, you and she shall never again be permitted to return."

Before he could protest, the glaceon was ushered out by Yorrand's advisor. Kairack, in his shock, shouted with spurts profanity, all of which the elder disregarded as he remained atop his outcrop. He sighed and lowered himself, spreading his back legs out to the side as he looked out across the expanse of his cavern. Being the clan leader was exhausting.

**ooo**

"Leave me be!" shouted Kairack as soon as he emerged from the elder's cave, greeted by a large circle of his pack mates. He recognised all the faces gathered around him but shook his head, clenching his teeth as he shouldered past them before taking off toward his family's igloo. Those sharing an audience with the elder were not permitted to have family accompany them, so his relatives had remained at the igloo, awaiting the verdict.

Before he reached his home, the female glaceon who had spoken to his mother prior watched as Kairack went by, yelping, "Kairack!"

He tried to ignore her, but she was a faster runner than he was, and caught up to him after a short few leaps. She was silent for a while as they ran, and just when she was about to ask him what had happened, they arrived in the presence of Kairack's family. Each member was huddled outside their igloo together, looking on with keen eyes and thumping hearts. Kairack tossed a glare to the female before returning to his family.

"If I pursue Tora and we fail to return to the mountain's boundary for longer than three days...I'll be banished," he concluded simply.

His mother gasped in horror as his father's eyes grew wide in disbelief. His grandparents were saddened by this news as well, their heads hanging with dejection. His grandmother spoke up, inquiring, "What of Tora?"

Kairack shook his head slowly, his dull, drained words absent all hope. "She will also be banished."

Shock rippled through the family as if billowing flames had just engulfed them all, driving daggers into their hearts and twisting their stomach with fear and murdered hope. "That's barbaric!" she screeched, her attention suddenly drawn to an approaching figure.

"Do you find the judgement of the elder unfair?" a voice questioned. The older female merely sneered.

"Was that not made clear?" she began, nearing him with purposefully-timed steps. There was a large dose of condescension in her voice which had most certainly harmed his pride.

"Froch," began her mate in his gravelly voice, clearly not approving of the way she spoke.

The elder's right-paw clan member only looked upon the two as if they were inferior, then presented his reason for making himself apparent. "I have come to finalise any details with the tracker in case he did not understand the parameters of the mission given to him by the elder."

Kairack's nose twitched with derision, trying to ignore the implied insult. "Please do."

He puffed up his chest. "Your three-day time restriction to retrieve your sister begins today. As stated by the elder, if you do not return with her before the third day's sundown, well...you remember the consequences." He added a smug smirk. "If you make it to the mountain before the sun falls behind the mountains on day three, a crew of scouts will meet with you at the edge of the mountain's borders. They will only stay until sundown, so arriving after they have left their post will render you unfit for return to the mountain." He spoke with factual accuracy, barely a trace of emotion within his tone and certainly no sympathy. "They will wait from dusk of the second day until dusk of the third, assuming you will not return before then."

Kairack pressed his eyelids together. He had less time than he had originally thought. Finding Tora was top priority, and he was rushed to leave as soon as he could. "So be it."

"Also," the elder's adviser insisted, "anyone who tries to follow you will be immediately banished. The elder did not permit you to lead a search party. Anyone who disagrees with that will have their name permanently erased from our clan's order. Of course, you will still be allowed back in. Just not your followers."

Without hesitation, Froch cut in with grating disbelief. "_Those _are the parameters given by our leader?" She scoffed in a mocking laugh, shaking her head with something close to disgust. "A clan mate is missing, and he's in the biggest hurry to expel her and my only other grandkit."

Cyfur raised his brow. "You should be perfectly aware of the ramifications attached to employing loose rules. Everything is set in stone to protect the clan."

"Peh! He's just got a shard on his shoulder," she insisted with loathing.

Cyfur's patience was visibly beginning to wear thin. "Are you questioning him?" he hissed with a hint of newfound amusement, looking keen to gain an offensive response which could warrant punishment.

"I'm questioning him, you and everything about this shady arrangement!" she grumbled. "He follows your counsel. That's proof enough that there's something wrong with him."

Kairack would have laughed at her brave establishment of authority had he not been in a heightened state of anxiety, especially as Cyfur was taken aback at the comment. He glared at her with contempt and shock; he would have fought her on the spot if he thought he might have a chance of winning. He had learned before not to mess with the old-timer; she was one of the most powerful glaceon in the clan, second only to the elder.

"I'll have you up in front of Yorrand for that!" he threatened, but the glare he received compiled by multiple family members influenced second thoughts.

"Please spare me your authoritative nonsense," Froch huffed, unable to see his viewpoint as anything more than the ramblings of a lackey. "You know why you serve at the elder's side. There's no other reason for it."

"Froch," her mate cut in once more. She looked briefly at him and rolled her eyes with a snort.

Froch stared Cyrfur down as he seemed to drink in the enormous insult. He knew she was right, but that didn't mean he could accept her affront with good grace. Pointing a defeated glare her way, the disgruntled ice type tore from the family and began to stalk back to where his presence was needed.

Kairack's grandfather turned to his mate with a disapproving scowl and squinted his eyes slightly. "There was no need to go that far," he insisted, but his mate was clearly not as remorseful as he would have liked her to be.

Instead she shrugged. "It was his own doing." Immediately after, she twirled around and met the eyes of a few family members, Kairack included. She seemed to notice with obvious disapproval that the female who had initially told her daughter of Tora's disappearance was with them, and continued to project her unwelcome gaze until the glaceon felt uncomfortable enough to leave.

"Don't leave without saying goodbye, Kai," the female requested on a sour note, her ears drooping and her neck lowered.

Kairack gave a few small nods which were hardly visible, then repeated a line he had spoken only a short time ago. "Thank you, Bolt." His eyes followed the ice type until a voice drew his attention.

"Son," began his father, "you should stay here. There's no better cause for a parent to finally leave his clan than to save his own daughter."

"_What_?!" exploded Sharli, immediate betrayal foaming on her face. Her bottom jaw trembled as it remained ajar, her eyes wide with fear. "N-no, no, no, Errit, you are not leaving me."

The male's fur seemed to grow instantaneously dense as he turned to her with flecks of aggression. "Would you rather _Kairack _go?"

Sharli's unchanging eyes moved from her mate to her son, blinking a few times as if it would help her.

"Father, stop. I'm going," Kairack growled, almost a little offended to see his decision being challenged.

Errit moved his eyes to his son, shaking his head as if his say was absolute. "No. She's my daughter—"

"And she's my _sister_!" he growled, his face becoming more contorted with anger. This was a common routine for his father to go through; he never seemed to have the trust in Kairack that he longed for. Before he could rebut, Kairack interjected again. "Father, you have an important place—"

"Kairack, I am your father and you will _listen _to me!" Errit captured a few paces in his son's direction as an intimidation technique. Kairack only retaliated with a reflection of his movements.

"No! YOU listen!" boomed the glaceon, leaping forward and closing the space between the two. He towered over his father as his eyes burned with fury and his jagged teeth interlocked perfectly. "Tora is missing and it's my responsibility to find her and bring her back. I was with her at the time and I failed to protect her, so now it falls upon me to undo my incompetence." The response to his confession that he was with the eevee at the time of her abduction was what he expected: a murmur amongst his family which was accompanied with a realisation that he had to have been, due to the fact that he knew she was taken in the first place. He focused back on his father. "You have an _important place_ in this colony, and you have Mother. Getting banished would be foolish."

"Your role is important, Kairack, and you know that."

"My role as a hunter can simply be fulfilled by one of the apprentices. I don't even know how to track. I only make the kills. Becoming a healer and understanding differences between species takes _years_ to perfect; it could cripple the colony greatly if you left, not to mention many outsiders who may pass through who you have learned how to treat." His father tried to interrupt, but Kairack added, "I heard that you helped that bellsprout who stayed here last night. If it hadn't been for your knowledge, that pokémon would have died." He turned his hard glare to his mother once he knew that his argument had been strong enough to silence his father. "Take care of him, okay?"

"Kairack!" his mother bleated, taking a few steps toward him. Kairack felt his nose twitch with agitation and a hint of sadness. "You're my only pup left..." she began, her painfully obvious implication that she assumed Tora would not return even if Kairack chose to pursue her hanging in the air. Her sobs twisted with her words. "If...if you leave now, neither of you will return and both of my offspring will be lost!"

"Mother, I'm not going out there to _die_. I'm going to save Tora, and I _will _return before the third day's sundown. And if...if not, I'll send word, Mother. I promise." He neared his mother, whose weeping was one of the only audible sounds, and pressed his forehead against hers. Their noses touched while their eyes closed and they remained so for a few moments before Kairack came apart and shifted to his father. "Do not follow me. It would be a waste for anyone else to be banished."

His father, having finally relented, gave a slow nod. "I don't agree with this, son."

Kairack tried to offer a smile. "Father, I've always wanted to see the world beyond these mountains anyway. If I find Tora and we can't return in time, I'm going to set out with her to find a new life somewhere. Don't worry about us."

"Tora," Sharli shrieked, collapsing into the snow and burying her head between her paws. "My baby... She's so young..."

As Errit made a move to comfort his mate, Kairack watched his grandmother approach with a wicked scowl. She closed her eyes briefly to inhale silently. "I think we are all very aware of the possible outcome—"

"It will not come to that," Kairack grunted. Although he did not believe his own words with certainty, he could not bear to imagine that there was even an outcome that could result in never seeing his family again. Froch was very aware of his feelings, even if he did not voice them aloud.

She gave him a particular look of knowledge and understanding, then placed her head around his neck in a soft embrace. Kairack felt warmth even near the top of an icy mountain that moment, feeling privileged to have such a caring family. Just as he was about to pull from the hug, his grandmother whispered, "Whoever took my dear granddaughter... Make them pay."

Kairack's eyes remained open as he stared at his grandmother's back, mulling over her words. As they slipped apart, he felt her old, stiff neck fur grate against his. He gave a single nod which was accompanied by briefly closed eyelids. "I will. Oh, and, Grandmother?" he began, gaining a look from her. "...Tell Mother that it's okay to have more kits."

**ooo**

"Sorry, Bolt," murmured the male glaceon as he raced through the snow. He had left without bidding her goodbye, but his concerns lay not with fulfilling the meaningless request of an acquaintance. He was finally on Tora's trail, descending the hill at a frightful speed. Regretfully he felt as if he had not gone such a speed whilst chasing his sister hours ago; maybe it was the renewed confidence bestowed upon him by his family which fuelled his tired legs. Whatever it was, he was grateful to have speed. There was a possibility that his younger sibling was still on the mountain, and if she was, he had to catch her in time.

Darting between logs of fallen trees, Kairack began to come into the thicker part of the mountain's vegetation. He was quite familiar with this part, as it was not far from his clan. He had only been travelling for a short while so far and he knew that it would take him all day to surpass his point of recognition and reach the border of the mountain. Maybe the human had taken twice as long in its journey away from the snow and ice, and Kairack had a hope of catching it on time. If not, then he would need to traverse beyond the point of the mountain's border. As much as it saddened him to think, there was a land without a frozen surface which he knew he might have to cross through.

"_Kairack!" _

The glaceon's thoughts were shaken as he dug his paws into the snow and skidded for a few paces. Flecks of shaven ice pattered his pelt from the side as he slid to a halt, his eyes wide from shock and his brow pressing firmly down. He managed to take a single step before tumbling over a hidden root whose ends must have reached for paces in either direction. His chest and face hit the snow first, a particularly solid part slapping his neck and causing him to groan. However, his disorientation was short lived as he rolled over his side once and then stood, having had years of practice with snow beneath his paws.

A rustle from over his left shoulder caused him to whip his head diagonally through the forest, viewing its ascent up the mountain. He lowered his head, feeling his body ache in multiple places as he panted heavily. Now was not a good time to engage in a fight.

"_I'm here," _the voice echoed, but its origin was still eerily unclear. He flicked his head about in the hopes of finding something, but peculiarly, there was a single way he could deduce where the voice was coming from. In fact, it was almost as if it was coming from _inside_ his body.

"Reveal yourself," he demanded, speaking almost as if to reassure himself that sounds _did _have a definitive direction.

A rustle from behind him caught his attention, and after spinning around, he was able to spot something: a small black and white body was clinging to a branch, just having come out of hiding. With relief and simultaneous confusion, the glaceon identified this creature as Mindi, the gothita he had helped escape an angry beartic not even a day ago. He took a step closer, allowing his eyes to focus on her properly before affirming to himself that this was, in fact, the pokémon he suspected.

"How did you..." he began, trailing off as the voices suddenly made sense. She was a psychic type, and that enabled her to practice all sorts of psychic abilities which he couldn't even begin to imagine. He figured that she must have spoken to him through his mind, similarly to how espeon communicated sometimes.

"I saw your sister," she blurted, her face fraught with worry. Kairack's gaze became intense as he stared at her, wasting no time in rushing over to allow her to jump down and onto his back. She did so immediately, grunting a little as she landed. "Well, not _saw_," she continued, her eyes dancing about as she adjusted her phrasing.

His eyes met with hers as he led the reunion and lowered himself to the ground, intending for her to hop off. She had not expected to end up standing on the snow, but figured he wanted her where he could meet eyes with her properly. "Mindi, please, I beg of you; tell me what you know about my sister's capture."

The gothita tiptoed from the glaceon's paws to the tree she had just been resting in and climbed up its protruding roots. Her feet were still not used to the snow, so she was not intent on standing in it. "I...I'm so sorry, Kairack." She met his eyes with sincerity before taking a breath and allowing it to flow slowly out between her pursed lips. "Last night, I was sitting in the little hollow in that tree you let me sleep in for the night, when suddenly I heard these sounds. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was too afraid to look in case it may have been those predators you were talking about. So I sat still and, well...there's this thing that psychic types can do called meditating. It's a technique actually originating in the meditite family which allows us to extend our consciousness. If we focus hard enough, we can read thoughts of living beings who aren't actually within our view." She swallowed a lump of saliva, regaining her footing on the slippery roots. "I did that to see if anything out there was hunting, but instead...I found a mind like no other." The gothita's voice became smooth and contemplative, as if she was fascinated.

"Tora?" Kairack pressed, only interested in details concerning his sister.

The psychic type blinked a few times. "This mind...was not of a pokémon. It was _human_."

The glaceon felt his muzzle twitch with the deeply seeded aggression he felt, and blew a puff of condensation from his nose. His voice became low. "What was it thinking?"

"He...was thinking about what he had just seen: a glaceon that had tried to save its sister, who he had captured. He wanted an eevee from these mountains, but he didn't want a glaceon," she explained, directing her eyes to the ice type after moving them away for a moment. "Anyway, his...thoughts were convoluted. He had a psychic pokémon with him who had relayed what his hitmontop had heard when he was battling you. Apparently he heard your sister call out your name, and shortly after that is when you told the hitmontop that she was your blood-sister."

The scene replayed in Kairack's head and he began to relive every detail over again. It was as if he could simply leap into his own mind and rectify his past mistakes by taking a different approach. However, simply remembering what had happened did not reproduce the memories as reality.

"Did the human say where it was going?" Kairack questioned, his voice monotonous as he felt hopelessness take a slow grip on him.

"He...was looking forward to getting off the mountain and into something which was going to take him away from here. I don't remember what it was called in his thoughts...but it was some human invention that was going to get him far away and back to the place he was at before he came here—a human settlement."

Kairack recoiled in surprise. He wasn't even aware that there _was _a human territory nearby. However, if this thing the human was looking forward to using to get back to its territory needed to take him a long distance, maybe it was too far from his clan's territory for them to normally be concerned. Humans rarely, if at all, showed themselves in the dangerous mountains his clan was home to.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he inquired, "Do you know where this settlement is, or how far it is?"

Mindi shook her head, keeping eye contact the whole time. He narrowed his eyes before she spoke. "Are you going to be able to track the human?"

The glaceon stared at her for a moment longer and then snarled, almost feeling like he was being mocked. "I do not know how," he admitted. "The only direction I have is straight down and off the mountain. I have no knowledge of the land beyond this mountain. Once I reach the border, I have no way of knowing which path the human took, or where any of those paths lead. I will be blind!" The glaceon bound his eyes closed and sank to the ground, hiding his head in his paws as he tried feebly to form some sort of plan.

"...I could come with you and help you," offered the psychic type. When Kairack looked up after sighing, he met her eyes, challenging her to convince him. She shifted her footing, forehead knotted with worry. "I can try to find out...what happened." The glaceon frowned, prompting her to go on. "If I find a clue...or you find a clue, then I can try to use my psychic powers to see the past...or maybe even the future."

"A clue?" he questioned.

She seemed to reason with herself. "Something related to your sister. Maybe something of hers."

"Like her fur?"

Mindi nodded. "Yes, like her fur."

Kairack blinked a few times and shook his head, turning away. "Finding hairs from Tora's body is going to be the most difficult scavenge that I've ever been on."

Mindi remained silent, enabling the glaceon to make his own decision. When he spoke up and asked her what she was going to gain from helping him, she murmured, "Safe passage off the mountains."

With thoughts buzzing through his mind but no other route to take, he relented with a sigh. "Very well." He gave her a once-over. "We may have to take more frequent rests if your weight becomes a problem."

The gothita's brows were overcome with a mixture of mild outrage and shock, and she quickly placed a hand on her belly. "My weight?"

The glaceon almost felt himself smile at her amusing response. "Because I will need to carry you," he explained, looking away into the distance. "If you saw the human not long ago..." He looked back to her. "Could it still be on the mountain?"

"Yes," she answered immediately, trying to regain her composure from his accusation. She cleared her throat.

"Then we must hurry," he prompted, allowing her to climb onto his shoulders. "We've wasted enough time here. Tora's safety is my priority."

Mindi gave an affirmative nod before the two sped through the snowy forest, hoping for any signs of Kairack's lost sister.

**ooo**

Night had once again fallen by the time Kairack and his companion had neared the end of the mountain, just as he had predicted, and they had taken shelter in preparation for the night. An unfamiliar sensation continuously washed over Kairack as he considered the elder's words regarding the land's boundaries. Pushing those boundaries were dangerous as it was when one of the members planned to return immediately afterwards, but venturing out on a journey with no real knowledge of when he could return, if he did at all, was almost suicidal. His chances of succeeding, even with Mindi helping him, looked slim.

What if he and Tora didn't make it back by the deadline? They would be banished, forced to live a life outside the mountain's bounds and somewhere neither of them had even been before. A new life would be forced upon them, and the two would have to live side by side in a new environment—hopefully someplace where freezing winds still touched the land. What happened to Mindi wasn't so much his concern, but wherever she was headed, he wished her safe travels.

With this surfacing in his mind, he turned to her as they lay in the clutches of a small bush whose branches acted as a ballooning shield surrounding them. Looking down at her awkward collection of brittle leaves which she had placed underneath her body, he raised his lips in a small smile. "What is your destination?"

The psychic type patted her makeshift bed down with care, trying with small movements not to crush any of the leaves. However, the moment she stepped onto the blanket of flaky foliage, several crunches could be heard. Her face fell and she plopped herself down regardless, sighing with a huff. "I...just...want to get off the mountain. I'll decide what to do after that," she muttered, not meeting his gaze.

The entire time Kairack had been in Mindi's presence, she had not given away any specifics about her home or reasons for coming to the mountain in the first place. The absence of a reason did not particularly bother him, but he did wonder if she was intentionally hiding information for her protection, or if she was just a private creature. Neither situation would surprise him. He had no business sticking his nose where it didn't belong anyway.

Instead, he took another approach. "Are you hungry?"

The psychic type gave a little nod. "Quite." She took a moment before angling her large head up at the ice type, whose eyes were betraying agreement. "I'm not sure if there's anything around here that I can consume."

Kairack tilted his head a fraction. "Do you have specific dietary requirements?"

"No, no," Mindi began, motioning to the frozen world outside of their makeshift hut. "It's just...there's not much around."

"Hunting at night is not ideal," the glaceon affirmed, peeking between two leaves failing to hide the frost beyond their position. "Most prey—"

"Hunting?!" squeaked the gothita with such astonishment that Kairack flinched. The expression pressed onto her face left no room for debate. "Gods, no. I'm not a savage."

The glaceon stared at her with a growing frown. "...Savage?"

Mindi, suddenly aware of their differences in morals and requirements, held her face where it was before blinking a few times in succession and slowly closing her mouth, which had previously been agape. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip as she turned away, slightly embarrassed by her outburst. She had just offended the pokémon who had saved her life. Both were silent until she muttered, "I apologise."

Kairack tried to invite a smile to visit his maw, but the lure failed. "None required." He took a tentative breath. "If you like, we can search for food at dawn."

His guest, still keeping her eyes averted, bobbed her head once in understanding. From then, the duo sat wordlessly while their small enclosure swayed as a chilly breeze pushed its way through the area, running an intangible hand up Kairack's spine. His shiver was minimal, but still apparent. The night was crisp even for him.

Mindi broke the absence of communication between the two as she shuffled once again, pulling a few more leaves off the bush's dense sections and laying them down on top of her already-established mess of a bed, trying to interlock them in an attempt to weave lasting comfort for herself. Again her feet simply crushed the delicate leaves upon the application of her weight, resulting in an inward groan. Unable to keep his attention off it, Kairack faced her frustrated attempts to create something soft to lie on and snorted through his nose. He could tell she wanted to throw him a glare, but she was simply too polite.

"Here," he began, outstretching his paw and shuffling the leaves aside. They tumbled toward the edges of the bush until they were swept underneath and out into the snowy open.

"N-no! I..." She sighed, gaping at her undone efforts, before turning to him with a rather wounded expression pasted upon her features.

Kairack dragged himself closer to her, bringing a small mound of snow with him. The psychic type grimaced at the sight and remained standing a few paces from him. "Come on," he insisted, and despite the cold climate, he emanated a warm smile.

Mindi guessed he was only so agreeable because he had been travelling with her for the entire day, and his tiredness and willingness to find some sort of mental relief from his constant worrying was overcoming his previous mindset. She had no doubt that the second the sun rose, he would be more than ready to focus only on speedy travel. It was already hours after sundown, so there was a good chance that there were only a pawful of hours until the sun was scheduled to make its daily appearance anyway. Regardless, she took a hesitant step toward his body and then sat against it.

At first she remained, feeling slightly awkward, before she noticed one of his long teal head appendages from her peripherals. She held her breath as she debated whether or not she should use it before quietly asking, and the glaceon agreed without thought. Slowly she stood up and positioned the end of the flap-like dangle, which was the widest part, on the ground. She then stepped onto it, feeling the slight warmth coursing through it. She rested her body against Kairack's short powder blue coat and nestled in until she could feel her body heat begin to take residence in the tips of her limbs again.

The glaceon, his head on the ground to enable Mindi to use his facial dangles, took comfort in the dirty snow and started to feel his eyelids slowly fall over his vision. Soon enough, they encapsulated all that he could see, and sleep began to cradle his mind in its soothing embrace.

**ooo**

"Kairack!"

A jolt of shock jerked the male glaceon instantly awake, his full-body motion causing the small psychic type resting against him to fling from his side and through the bush's boundaries. Kairack leapt to his feet instantly and heard both a cry and a separate yell, trying to gather himself as he, too, burst from the brush and wildly flung his head in all directions. His search for a source met an end once he laid his bloodshot eyes upon a female of his own kind, her expression both guilty and surprised.

"Sorry!" she blurted.

Kairack's teeth were bared and his eyes remained wide as he glared at her. His legs twitched, wanting to move him forward with both a fight and flight response. However, the sudden alarm still tingling within his limbs began to subside, and his breath slowed. His face turned from frightened to puzzled. "...Bolt?"

"Oh, dear," she groaned without a response for him, dashing away from her pack mate without a second look and scuttling to where the gothita had emerged unwillingly from her shelter. Her paws brought her to a halt where the psychic type was leaning against a tree in fear, her defences fading once she realised that she was not under attack. In fact, the new glaceon looked wholly apologetic. She dipped the front half of her body in a bow. "I'm so, so sorry!"

Mindi glanced in Kairack's direction, only able to see him once he rounded the bush. "Who is this?!" she peeped.

"I'm Bolt," the female cut in, her eyes firmly set on the gothita as she continued to convey her sincere apologies. She whirled around to meet gazes with Kairack.

"So named for her hasty actions," he added with traces of gruffness in his tone. "Worry not; she is a part of my clan."

The gothita's shoulders dropped slightly as she drank in the situation, looking relieved that her life was no longer in danger. She was only half the size of each glaceon, which, in her mind, made her a perfect target.

"I didn't mean to give anyone a scare," Bolt admitted, her brows furrowed with concern. "I promise. I'm just here to..." She span around and met eyes with Kairack. "To help you find Tora."

"Get back to the clan grounds at once," the male glaceon instructed, leaving no room for argument.

His immediate dismissal caught Bolt off guard. She blinked and kept her jaws parted for a moment longer. "But—"

"Do not argue with me." The glaceon stalked past his pack mate with his ears tucked back and his fur beginning to bristle. He arrived by Mindi's side and bent his front legs, lowering his front half for her to climb aboard. The gothita did as he expected and sat between his shoulder blades. The duo focused their stares on Bolt, who looked utterly baffled.

"You need all the help you can get, Kai," she protested softly, trying to appeal to his sense of logic.

He clenched his teeth and turned to face her properly, a scowl shaping his brow. He took a step towards her. "You heard Cyfur. The elder will banish you for following me."

"Kai—"

"This is not your concern," he pressed, his voice becoming more rigid. "I will not have you banished on my behalf!" The other glaceon simply shook off her acquaintance's expanding aggression, clearly adamant about her decision.

"Yorrand can kiss my tail end." Her words were so chiselled with certainty that Kairack was almost surprised to hear them. There was such conviction behind her statement that he believed she truly did not respect the elder's judgement. The snort she guided through her nose was further proof of her unimpressed attitude which bled with contempt. "He has screwed my family over more than once. His heartless and careless response to Tora's plight only magnified my disgust for his so-called 'just' rulings. I find myself losing faith in him by larger increments with each passing day. This cause is worth far more to me than any he has ever offered."

Kairack watched as his female counterpart paced back and forth, anger brewing within her which was evidently not new. He eyed her closely, accepting how serious she was. "It is my assumption that you are okay with the consequences of this decision...yes?" he queried, watching as the glaceon lowered her head in something close to shame. She did not seem to want to confirm his words, so he repeated absent pride, "Banishment."

Bolt notably tensed at the word but followed up with apparent relaxation of her muscles as she looked to find a mental equilibrium within herself. "Like I said before, Yorrand is no friend of mine."

A few more seconds passed before the male glaceon relented. She was surprised to hear him sigh and then respond with, "I cannot stop you." Her ears perked up as his slowly did the same. "And I do welcome the help."

Bolt nodded once and produced a smile, but unfortunately for her, Kairack could not seem to do the same. She glanced to the bush they had previously been taking shelter within, and wondered if there was room for her. It looked as if it would be a squishy fit with three of them, but still possible. "Sorry for disturbing your sleep," she reiterated, stretching the skin around her lips in an awkward smile. "Shall we worm back in there until sunup? I'm pretty tired mys—"

"No," Kairack snapped, unintentionally crafting more hostility than intended. However, he made no effort to rectify his overreaction. "We've rested long enough. It's time to leave."

The glaceon gave the newcomer no time to make an attempt at changing his mind and he tore away, secretly longing for the embrace of the shrub. He refused to admit to himself that he was in need of both mental and physical repair, but the appearance of Bolt had done two things. The mention of Tora made her fresh in his mind. The more time they invested into actual travel and tracking, the higher the chance was of finding her in time. Every precious second they wasted sleeping when they could have been on his sister's trail was another second he was awarding to his potential failure. That, no matter the cost, could _not _happen.

As the glaceon raced through the hardened snow under the judgemental glare of the moon, Kairack tried to ignore the calls directed at him coming from Bolt's lips (which she seemed to have a talent for). As well as renewing his fire for finding Tora, Bolt's appearance had implanted newfound pressure in him for unintentionally inciting rebellion in her, resulting in her abandoning the clan for a single family's cause. Although he appreciated her dedication, it was nothing that should have been of such concern to her. Knowing that she had been wronged by the clan leader long before this incident gave him a flicker of hope, however, as it made him consider that perhaps she would have left regardless. This particular escapade only gave her permanent departure more weight. It painted her as a martyr, which he thought she may have expected to affect clan members whose disheartened thoughts on the matter may then have been passed onto the elder—especially those of her family.

Bolt finally gave up her endeavour to change his mind when she caught up with him, and the two – with Mindi attached firmly to Kairack's back – raced on down the mountainside. It was not long before they happened upon the edge of the mountain, which was lined with snow-dusted thickets as far as the eye could see. Before they neared the edge properly, the angle of the heightened position gave them a clear view of what lay beyond: although it wasn't entirely frost-covered, the forest stretching into the distance looked frigid and highly influenced by the mountain's harsh conditions. It was greener than Kairack and Bolt were used to, which the two knew would feel odd.

As they approached, Kairack began to slow. Multiple thoughts cycled through his cluttered mind, and he found himself panting at his exertion. Descending a mountain whilst clouded thoughts absorbed one's focus made it difficult to discern when tiredness suddenly became a factor. Bolt took a few paces back towards him as she nearly crossed over the border, glad she hadn't made the mistake without realising it. She knew just by looking at her fellow ice type that he greatly valued the boundaries of the clan's territory. Growing up, eevee of their clan were taught that venturing outside of it was something of a taboo.

As the three looked out on what was, to two of them, unfamiliar land, the uneasiness in the air felt heavier than ever. "This is it," began Bolt to break the silence, wholly uncomfortable but marginally excited.

Kairack only stared, fear consuming parts of his mind while other portions of it strove relentlessly to fight it off. He had a duty. He was not going to let nature have its way with his destiny once again.

He took one defined step closer to the border, followed by a sudden collection of more. Unswayed determination found its way into his bones and pushed him forward, finally allowing the glaceon to cross over the mountain's perimeter with Bolt in his wake. He expected more of a rush, and attributed some of its absence to the tiredness that began to creep into his mind and soak his limbs with ever-so-slight fatigue. With a sneer, he hissed with distaste for his need for sleep. His body may have been tired, but his mind refused to give in.

Knowing there was no turning back, Kairack mustered the courage to spit, "I'm coming for you, Tora."


End file.
